Project Summary/Abstract Core G - The Clinical Investigations (CI) Core supports and enables clinical and translational HIV studies with a specific focus on NIH Office of AIDS priorities and our Center?s local focus of: optimizing HIV care, removing HIV health disparities, and advancing discoveries in HIV cure and vaccine efforts. The CI Core functions as a central access point for basic, clinical, and translational investigators by providing experience with Institutional Review Board (IRB) documentation, expertise in human subjects research protections, developing a participant recruitment strategy, a site to evaluate participants and collect specimens, and resources to design a database and analyze data. The Core also provides assistance with abstract, manuscript, and grant preparation. By providing these services the CI core allows emerging, basic-science and international investigators to pursue and realize their HIV research goals and ultimately achieve research independence. The specific aims of the CI Core are: 1) To assist in study recruitment and provide well-characterized data and specimens to support HIV clinical investigation and translational research, 2) To provide consultation for clinical research study design, community review, regulatory services and safety monitoring and 3) To encourage, mentor and train the next generation of HIV clinical investigators and support mentors in the performance of HIV research. The CI Core interacts with other San Diego CFAR Cores and available clinical research infrastructure to: enable research requiring laboratory and clinical expertise, foster multidisciplinary research among basic, clinical, and behavioral scientists, and mentor emerging investigators in the principles of clinical investigation. Our CFAR funding permits the CI Core to offer its services to new and junior investigators without charge in most cases. Quality-assured data sets, with key data elements that have been reviewed for consistent definitions and accuracy, are provided free to the CFAR academic community. The CI Core also facilitates access to biological specimens stored in the CFAR Network of Integrated Clinical Systems (CNICS) specimen repository to CFAR-associated investigators. The resources from the CI Core have been expanded and leveraged by collaboration with seven additional CFARs across the country to form the CNICS and the North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design (NA-ACCORD).